Taipei, Taiwan, 27 September 2005 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies and PC platform solutions, today made available VIA StrongBox, a secure virtual drive application that utilizes the VIA PadLock Security Engine in VIA C7 and VIA C7-M processors to enable real-time encryption of data on local storage devices using military-grade security algorithms. The security of VIA StrongBox will be put to the test with a US$5000 prize on offer during the annual OPEN HACK competition at this year's Hack in the Box security conference being held in Malaysia this week.

Viruses, worms, hacking and identity theft have become an everyday part of computing, with the result that the security of our personal and confidential business information is emerging as the single biggest issue in computing today. Notebook PCs are especially vulnerable, with their easy portability creating a much higher risk of theft and loss — reports show that a staggering 10% of notebooks are stolen annually.

VIA StrongBox empowers users to safely store as much as 40 gigabytes of their personal documents, photos, and files in up to ten virtual 'strongbox' drives, with a stylish, intuitive interface for easy configuration and management. Information can be saved and retrieved on unlocked StrongBox drives just like any other storage device, but when locked or when the computer is shut down, VIA StrongBox encrypts all the contents in real time, rendering them 100% unreadable and inaccessible to unauthorized users.